Sunday, February 24, 2013

Just For The Record

       How is your record keeping? This past week I worked with  Jim Nedin, a consultant with our company, at a customer sprayer training event. The last section of Jim's presentation is about safety. When Jim was in the early part of his 40+ year career, he was a Superintendent. He had an accident one day while loading a sprayer and inhaled a large dose of chemical. He ended up in the hospital and to this day he still has effects from just touching a sprayer that has some chemical residual! His talk on sprayer safety is one of experience and you can tell when he talks about his accident it is incredibly important to him. But sadly their is another part of this....the legal side. Today if the same accident that happened to Jim occurred at your club (hopefully never!) what would happen? Well my guess would be a police report and a visit from your insurance agent, maybe a visit from OSHA or maybe even a Department of Ag Rep. Do you have your records ready for the fine tooth comb that is coming? Do you have it up to date? Are you ready for a lawyer to call and request all of it? Employee safety is always one of the biggest things at any club but it is the back half of being able to show the employee safety is in place.
       We are already sending out tine catalogs and we all know the season is right around the corner. So with one of the few days left this winter where you are doing office work, please take a look at your spray records! Make sure you are ready for something that hopefully never happens!

*Just wanted to say great job by the Philadelphia Area Golf Course Superintendents Association on Friday, especially Scott Kroll & Kristen Liebsch for running the fundraiser for Tom Gosselin in his fight against Leukemia! Incredible turnout of just about EVERYBODY in the Turf business in the Philly area to support someone that we are all pulling for!


WJC

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Train Like a Champion

       One of the big beliefs of our company is education. For me it is one of our strengths and I enjoy being a part of it. A mix of customer focused events and training for our employees are what the majority of the schedule is for the next month. 
       This upcoming week I have scheduled a customer sprayer training event at their location with Jim Nedin. I hope these guys are ready because Jim has an incredibly in depth program for them! On Wednesday, Turf has a big training day scheduled for our entire company. The highlight is the sales trainer from The Toro Company, Steve Keating. Take a look at http://stevekeating.me/ for some of his great leadership insights! Steve has been with Toro for 17 years and before that was with Dale Carnegie. Seeing him many times over the years, he really makes you look at yourself and how you do your job. By the way I forgot to mention that the Central PA Superintedents are hosting their winter educational event on Monday at Lederach GC....
       Rolling into the next week, we have a ProCore 648 customer training events. Then we roll right into the next week with Bernhard & Company doing Sales & Service training first and then more customer Demo days. With Toro University in mid-March and customer sprayer training classes to follow at the end of March........WHEW!
       I would urge you to get out an attend something before the grind of the season starts. It is always worth investing in yourself even if you have to take a vacation day to attend!


WJC


      

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Deplane Deplane

       With the GIS behind us, it is always interesting to see some indicators that tell you the health of our business. I have not seen the numbers from GCSAA but it seemed like the numbers were positive. Also, when you see smaller vendor booth numbers up that is to me a positive indicator too.
For me the 60 hours in San Diego was not good planning....In on Tuesday for the Toro business meeting and home on the red eye Thursday night was a killer. With the added adventure of having to deplane in Washington DC on the last leg of my trip home because the plane had mechanical issues.
       To me it was good to see the show expanding and not contracting. a few years ago I recall standing in the center of the show and being able to see the end of the booths in both directions.
This year you could get a good stretch of the legs and not see everything.
      
       Thank you to the Delaware Valley College students who took the time to tour the Toro both with one of Del Val's finest alumni Lou Bosco!

        Congratulations to Matt Shaffer of Merion GC &
 Dan Meersman of Philadelphia Cricket Club!

Matt Shaffer of Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pa., is among this year's winners of the GCSAA/Golf Digest Environmental Leaders in Golf awards.

Dan Meersman has been named the winner of the 2012 TurfNet Superintendent of the Year Award, presented by Syngenta.

WJC